Nigel Farage Warns Against No Trade Deal with U.K., As Jibes Fly In Parliament

Addressing European lawmakers, Nigel Farage says the U.K. will not be the last country to leave the EU

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage attends a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 28, 2016.
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Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, has said that the European Union would be worse off without British trade, in a speech to European lawmakers in which he also predicted that the U.K. will not be the last to leave the political bloc.

“If you were to decide to cut off your noses… and to reject any idea of a sensible trade deal then the consequences would be far worse for you than for us,” Mr. Farage told the European Parliament, “Even no deal is better for the U.K. than the current rotten deal that we’ve got.”

Calling for a “sensible, tariff-free deal” between the U.K. and EU, Mr. Farage said that the introduction of tariffs on the auto industry would put hundreds of thousands of German workers’ jobs at risk, “trade with [the U.K.] matters.”

Trade analysts said that the U.K. accounts for about 16% of the goods exports of other EU countries, while the EU accounts for 44% of British exports. Eurostat figures show that for only two countries, Ireland and Cyprus, does the U.K. take more than 10% of exports.

“We now offer a beacon of hope to democrats across the rest of the European continent,” Mr. Farage said, predicting that other EU member states will follow the U.K. in leaving the presently 28-member bloc.

Echoing demands from across Europe for British Prime Minister David Cameron to quickly trigger Article 50 – the political mechanism for formal exit of the EU – Mr. Farage called for a “grown-up discussion” on the future of the U.K.-EU relationship.

In a heated parliamentary session, in which European Parliament President Martin Schulz intervened twice during Mr. Farage’s speech to address jeering parliamentarians, Mr. Farage said that Europe, “as a political project, is in denial,” and did not refrain from goading his fellow parliamentarians.

“I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives,” he said, as jeers and boos rang out across the chamber, prompting the EU President to ask law-makers to stop “acting like UKIP usually acts in this chamber.” Mr. Farage has been a member of the European Parliament since 1999.

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament and a former Belgian prime minister, took aim at Mr. Farage, who he said was “cheating your own citizens here.”

“What I think is the biggest waste of money in the European Union of today: that’s the salary we all pay to Mr. Farage,” Mr. Verhofstadt said, addressing Mr. Farage. “You are a member of the Fisheries Committee and you are never there. In 2011, no attendance. In 2012, no attendance… you pay yourself a salary without doing any labor in your own committee.”

“Why are you here?” European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker asked the UKIP MEP, despite amiable interactions before the debate.